the economy grows more slowly. government is a significant part of the economy. and if we learned anything, which you suggest we haven't, if we were going to learn from this, what we would learn is in fact you cut the government spending at a time like this you're going to grow more slowly. now the sequester threatens $85 billion of cuts in 2013. and most estimates are that could take another half of a percentage point off of gdp. like i said, if we're growing at somewhere around 1.2% we can't afford that. why is the market -- the dow hit 14,000 today, doing very, very well. >> i think i can explain it. >> explain it, enlighten me. >> so far, we have been talking exclusively about the united states. although i did mention austerity and europe. but corporate profitability is doing well. well, if you're a multi-national corporation that can sell into developing economies in asia, for example, then your profitability doesn't depend on the united states getting it right. it doesn't depend on the congress rejecting austerity. what it does is go where there is growth.